In essence

1706 Posts
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Lullaby of Tears
Claude Debussy: Berceuse héroïque
The Battle of the Somme was fought between 1 July and 18 November 1916. One of the largest and most brutal engagements of the First World War, almost one million men were wounded or killed! Among them was the young
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Singing the Country
Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) was a skilled composer but it’s for his unique preservation (and improvement) of the songs of his area of France that he is best remembered. Canteloube came from a départment in south central France called the Auvergne.
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“I drink, therefore I am”
Modest Mussorgsky
When the legendary British surreal comedy outfit “Monty Python” announced a reunion show in 2014, tickets sold out in a matter of minutes and additional shows had to be hastily arranged. Performing in London’s O2 Arena, satellite live feeds broadcast
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Dancing into the Past
John Adams, born 1947, made the world look at East-West relations in a new light with his ground-breaking opera Nixon in China. First performed in Houston in 1987, the opera took a look behind the scenes of an event of
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Presentation of the Rose
Richard Strauss: Rosenkavalier Suite
From his glorious summation of 19th-century Romanticism to the deeply probing psychological experimentations of 20th-century Modernism, the long career of Richard Strauss spanned one of the most chaotic political, social, and cultural periods in human history. Composing in all genres,
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Egos and Ballet
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 Once upon a time, a ballet dancer had a dream of doing a ballet on a classical Greek theme. At the time, he was just a dancer in the Imperial Russian Ballet and
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The Morbid Compulsion of Anton Bruckner
Having been born, raised and educated in rural Austria ill prepared Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) for the acidic and highly competitive musical environment of imperial Vienna. Retaining his shy and unassuming demeanor throughout his life, Bruckner presented a wide target for
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Fighting About Music in 1913
Now, the most famous fight about music in 1913, occurred at the première of The Rite of Spring. Audience in an uproar, fights in the audience, the dancers can’t hear the music for the noise in the hall, Nijinsky futilely
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